[sacw] Getting ready for bus diplomacy

[Harsh Kapoor]

February 18, 1999
FYI
South Asia Citizens Web
=======================
Getting ready for bus diplomacy

By Beena Sarwar

LAHORE, Feb 19: Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee couldnt have
chosen a better time of year to accept his Pakistani counterparts
invitation to visit this country, especially Lahore, Nawaz Sharifs
hometown. For one thing, it is spring, a lovely season in Lahore but
Vajpayee has just missed the most joyous expression of celebrating this
season.

Basant the Punjabi celebration that welcomes spring with mustard-flower
yellow and flying kites -- last Sunday (Feb 14) was one of the most
enthusiastically celebrated ever, with even government departments jumping
in and sponsoring events for the first time, ignoring the long-standing
contention of religious extremists that this is an un-Islamic festival and
should be banned.

Among the many out of town guest who came to join the celebrations was
former Indian cricket captain Bishan Singh Bedi and his wife, who were
part of a World Punjabi Congress delegation.

But the basant mood still prevails. And the political weather seems never
to have been better either. The keenly-watched cricket test match in India
took place without any untoward incident as the press puts it, despite
the dark threats of the VHP.

Nawaz Sharif gave an interview a couple of weeks ago to Shekhar Gupta of
Indian Express in which he exuded Punjabi bonhomie and invited Vajpayee
for a taste of Lahoree hospitality, confidently brushing aside any
suggestion that the religious parties would disrupt the visit.

He is being put to the test rather sooner than many expected. Vajpayee was
quick to respond also via the press, and literally within days, the
invitation had been accepted and arrangements were being made for the
journey.

The much-talked about Lahore-Delhi bus service agreement has finally been
signed after much preparation, including trial runs by officials of both
countries. And it is on the inaugural run of the Delhi-Lahore bus that
Vajpayee is expected to cross the Wagah border on Feb 20.

Until now, no road traffic between the two countries has been permitted,
although rail and air links do exist. A notable exception was the visit to
Pakistan four years ago of some 20 high-ranking Rimcollians - alumni of the
Royal Indian Military College in Dehra Dun ex-army officers whose visit
here was facilitated by fellow alumnus, then Interior Minister Naseerullah
Babar.

For ordinary mortals, if they can manage to obtain visas, its either the
expensive half-hour plane journey or the tedious Lahore-Delhi train ride,
for which trains have to be switched at borders where intensive customs and
passport controls contribute to stretching the 300 km (?) distance into at
least 24 hours.

Last November, some 100 Indians who arrived at Amritsar on rented buses,
had to walk across the border and board Pakistani buses (also rented), to
participate in a Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy
people-to-people meeting being held in Peshawar.

The Lahore-Delhi bus, for the first time, besides being a government
vehicle, promises the sight of an Indian license plate on this side of the
border, and vice versa. The smaller number of passengers means that the
checking and border controls will be less long drawn out even so, a
journey which should take no more than 6-8 hours will end up lasting 12.
Islamabad, at a comparative distance from Lahore, now takes no more than
four hours to reach on the Motorway.

In fact, reflecting his impatience with the bureaucracy Sharif went so far
in the Indian Express interview as so promise that all outstanding issues
between the two countries could be resolved by himself and his fellow
Indian prime minister as they rode together on the bus although it is not
likely that he will accompany Vajpayee back as earlier speculated.

Vajpayees forthcoming visit to Lahore after 20 years is also preceded by
an unprecedented India-Pakistan Parliamentarians Conference organised by
daily The News, at which if nothing else, politicians from either side of
the border got to meet and exchange views.

This kind of people-to-people contact is vital in reducing animosities,
maintains Digant Oza, political editor in India of four Gujrati-language
publications with a combined circulation of 300,000. Who would have
thought that Gohar Ayub (Pakistans hawkish former foreign minister, the
son of late military dictator Gen. Ayub Khan) would be sitting with Indian
parliamentarians and agreeing that peace is necessary in the region. But
he had to say that, even if he didnt mean it. And that is important.

Gohar Ayub had been quoted shortly before the conference as saying that
Indians and Pakistanis were like oil and water in a barrel, they just cant
mix.

Oza, who attended the Parliamentarians Conference along with several other
Indian journalists, also quotes the example of an equally hawkish Indian
parliamentarian who was heard shouting Pakistan zindabad! (long live
Pakistan) at the end of one session. A week ago, one couldnt even have
conceived of this! says a bemused Oza, scratching his grizzly beard.

But many were disappointed with the Indian parliamentarians cautious
approach to the disputed valley of Kashmir, which echoed the official line
a far cry from the resolution adopted by various meetings of the
Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy, which rejects the
notion of Kashmir as a territorial dispute between two countries, and
calls for the issue to be settled through dialogue, taking into account
the rights and aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

Meanwhile, preparations for Vajpayees visit are in full swing, with roads
being repaired at the gates at Wagah being given a paint job. But not
everyone is prepared to welcome the Indian premier. Three religious
parties, including the Jamat-e-Islami, have held demonstrations against
the visit, and announced a strike on Feb 20, defying the governments
request not to do so a protest not joined by most of their fellow
religious parties.

In a letter to President Rafiq Tarrar, JI chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed has
stated that the preparations to receive the Indian prime minister have
created concern among the patriotic people. Castigating the Sharif
government for betraying the Kashmir cause, he says that this course will
not only undermine Pakistans ideological identity but also its stand on
the dispute.

On the other side of the political spectrum, left-wing Labour Party general
secretary Farooq Tariq, who is a firm proponent of India-Pakistan ties,
refuses to accept Vajpayee as a genuine representative of the Indian
people.

He is as much an oppressor of the Indian masses as Nawaz Sharif is of the
Pakistanis, and as long as people like them are at the helm of affairs, it
is not likely that ties between our countries will improve, he says. The
BJP, like the Pakistan Muslim League, is responsible for the economic and
political exploitation of ordinary people.

But Tariq takes strong exception to the Jamat-e-Islamis threat to forcibly
halt all business activity in Lahore during Vajpayees visit. It is the JIs
democratic right to protest against the visit but we cannot accept it to
force shops and businesses to shut down, he says, adding that this
behaviour is indicative of facist tendencies.

It is appropriate that Vajpayees first visit to Pakistan since 1979, when
he was a foreign minister (?) should be to Lahore. As the writer of the
weekly Lahore Diary wrote recently in daily Dawn: The city symbolises the
sharply clashing and contradictory strains that govern our attitudes
towards India. Lahore is where goodwill for India and Indians breaks out
on the slightest pretext at the public level; it is also the home base of
those groups and parties who are most determined to resist any
normalisation of ties.

It is Lahore which opened its arms to Indian cricket fans in 1954, just
six years after the communal bloodbath in the Punjab. It is Lahore which
bore the brunt of the Indian offensive in 1965 and whose poets and writers
were swept by a wave of anti-Indian fervour.

It is this city which has maintained a tenuous rail link with Delhi; and
it is also the city where you most loudly hear protest from chauvinists
about the proposed bus service between the two countries.

It remains to be seen which Lahore Vajpayee appeals to. Will the
politicians be able to transcend their traditional standpoints and take a
necessary and significant step towards peace in South Asia, especially now
that both India and Pakistan have tested nuclear weapons.

It is this last factor that has in fact galvanised the beginnings of a
peace movement in both countries; several Indian delegates are expected at
the massive Peace Conference next weekend in Karachi, an entirely
non-government initiative. One of the major points being debated at the
conference will be the issue of economics and security.

Economic development is closely linked with the law and order situation in
the country and peace in the region, as Nawaz Sharif has acknowledged. It
should not be forgotten that he was elected not just on his economic
manifesto but also on his pledge to promote peace with India.

Both he and Vajpayee are better equipped for the task than leaders of
parties which are perceived as relatively more progressive had it been
Benazir Bhutto in Sharifs place today, the Feb 20 strike would have been
endorsed by not three, but by three dozen religious parties, and then some.
(ends)

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